Through the Yukon Gold Diggings - Josiah Edward Spurr

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might be useful to you, if I could remember them. About spearing whales—for food, you know—you will have to do a lot of that. I wish I could have you meet him sometime; he could tell you much more than I can. Somebody said there was gold up there. Was it you? Well don't get frozen up and drift across the Pole, like Nansen, just to get where the gold is. But I suppose the nuggets——"

      "Let's go on deck, Jane," said the old gentleman;—then to us, politely but firmly, "I have been much interested in your account, and shall be glad to hear more later." We had not said anything yet.

      We disembarked at Juneau. We had watched the shore for nearly the whole trip without perceiving a rift in the mountains through which it looked feasible to pass, and at Juneau the outlook or uplook was no better. Those who have been to Juneau (and they are now many) know how slight and almost insecure is its foothold; how it is situated on an irregular hilly area which looks like a great landslide from the mountains towering above, whose sides are so sheer that the wagon road which winds up the gulch into Silver Bow basin is for some distance in the nature of a bridge, resting on wooden supports and hugging close to the steep rock wall. The excursionists tarried a little here, buying furs at extortionate prices from the natives, fancy baskets, and little ornaments which are said to be made in Connecticut.

      In the hotel the proprietor arrived at our business in the shortest possible time, by the method of direct questioning. He was from Colorado, I judged—all the men I have known that look like him come from Colorado. There was also a heavily bearded man dressed in ill-fitting store-clothes, and with a necktie which had the strangest air of being ill at ease, who was lounging near by, smoking and spitting on the floor contemplatively.

      "Here, Pete," said the proprietor, "I want you to meet these gentlemen." He pronounced the last word with such a peculiar intonation that one felt sure he used it as synonymous with "tenderfeet" or "paperlegs" or other terms by which Alaskans designate greenhorns.

      I had rather had him call me "this feller." "He says he's goin' over the Pass, an' maybe you can help each other." Pete smiled genially and crushed my hand, looking me full in the eye the while, doubtless to see how I stood the ordeal. "Pete's an old timer," continued the hotel-man, "one of the Yukon pioneers. Been over that Pass—how many times, Pete, three times, ain't it?"

      "Dis makes dirt time," answered Pete, with a most unique dialect, which nevertheless was Scandinavian. "Virst time, me an' Frank Densmore, Whisky Bill an' de odder boys. Dat was summer som we washed on Stewart River, on'y us—fetched out britty peek sack dat year—eh?" He had a curious way of retaining the Scandinavian relative pronoun som in his English, instead of who or that.

      "You bet, Pete," answered the other, "you painted the town; done your duty by us."

      "Ja," said Pete, "blewed it in; mostly in 'Frisco. Was king dat winter till dust was all been spent. Saw tings dat was goot; saw udder tings was too bad, efen for Alaskan miner. One time enough. I tink dese cities kind of bad fer people. So I get out. Sez I—'I jes' got time to get to Lake Bennett by time ice breaks,' so I light out." He smiled happily as he said this, as a man might talk of going home, then continued, "Den secon' dime I get a glaim Forty Mile, Miller Greek—dat's really Sixty Mile, but feller gits dere f'm Forty Mile. Had a pardner, but he went down to Birch Greek, den I work my glaim alone."

      He put his hand down in his trousers pocket and brought up a large flat angular piece of gold, two inches long; it had particles of quartz scattered through, and was in places rusty with iron, but was mostly smooth and showed the wearing it must have had in his pocket. He shoved the yellow lump into my hand. "Dat nugget was de biggest in my glaim dat I found; anoder feller he washed over tailin's f'm my glaim efter, an' he got bigger nuggets, he says, but I tinks he's dam liar. Anyhow, I get little sack an' I went down 'Frisco, an' I blewed it in again. Now I go back once more."

      Bacon, Lord of Alaska.

      Concerning the amount of supplies it is necessary to take on a trip like ours, it may be remarked that three pounds of solid food to each man per day, is liberal. As to the proportion, no constant estimate can be made, men's appetites varying with the nature of the articles in the rations and their temporary tastes. On this occasion Pete picked out the supplies, laying in what he judged to be enough of each article: but it appeared afterwards that a man may be an experienced pioneer, and yet never have solved the problem of reasonably accurate rations, for some articles were soon exhausted on our trip, while others lasted throughout the summer, after which we were obliged to bequeath the remainder to the natives. Camp kettles, and frying-pans, of course, were in the outfit, as well as axes, boat-building tools, whip-saw, draw-shave, chisels, hammers, nails, screws, oakum and pitch. It was our plan to build a boat on the lakes which are the source of the Yukon, felling the spruce trees, and then with a whip-saw slicing off boards, which when put together would carry us down the river to the gold diggings.

      For our personal use we had a single small tent, A-shaped, but with half of one of the large slanting sides cut out, so that it could be elevated like a curtain, and, being secured at the corners by poles or tied by ropes to trees, made an additional shelter, while it opened up the interior of the tent to the fresh air or the warmth of the camp-fire outside. Blankets for sleeping, and rubber blankets to lay next to the ground to keep out the wet; the best mosquito-netting or "bobinet" of hexagonal mesh, and stout gauntleted cavalry gloves, as protection against the mosquitoes. For personal attire, anything. Dress on the frontier, above all in Alaska, is always varied, picturesque, and unconventional. Flannel or woollen shirts, of course, are universal; and for foot gear the heavy laced boot is the best.

      As usual, we were led by the prospective terrors of cold water in the lakes and streams to invest in rubber boots reaching to the hip, which, however, did not prove of such use as anticipated. We had brought with us canvas bags designed for packing, or carrying loads on the back, of a model long used in the Lake Superior woods. They were provided with suitable straps for the shoulders, and a broad one for the top of the head, so that the toiler, bending over, might support a large part of the load by the aid of his rigid neck. These we utilized also as receptacles for our clothes and other personal articles.

      Other men were in Juneau also, bound for the Yukon—not like the hordes that the Klondike brought up later from the States, many of whom turned back before even crossing the passes, but small parties of determined men. We ran upon them here and there. In the hotel we sat down at the table with a self-contained man with a suggestion of recklessness or carelessness in his face, and soon found that he was bound over the same route as ourselves, on a newspaper mission. Danlon, as we may call him, had brought his manservant with him, like the Englishman he was. He was a great traveller, and full of interesting anecdotes of Afghanistan, or Borneo, or some other of the earth's corners. He had engaged to go with him a friend of Pete's, another pioneer, Cooper by name, short, blonde and powerfully built. Between us, we arranged for a tug to take us the hundred miles of water which still lay between us and Dyea, where the land journey begins; after which transaction, we sat down to eat our last dinner in civilization. How tearfully, almost, we remarked that this was the last plum-pudding we should

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